Questions and, am I that bad? :P

I have some questions, I see people using those orange textures on the walls, why?. And, how do I make those cool "walls", I mean, like dustbowl, cuz all walls that I make are a simple square hehe, and my maps are boring. I dont know if its because im new to hammer or because I really dont have talent for those things hehe, everytime I see the cool maps people post here I try to do something but all I can get is plain structures. Look:

I would like to know how to do to things like dustbowl has, they are not SQUARE maps like mine! HELP what should I DO? LOL ( I got the dustbowl picture on google, i didint write that hehe)

Make a block
Select the block
Click the texture application button
Click the displacement tab in the new window
Click the Create button
The power defines how many points you can edit (higher = more points)
Click ok
Click Paint geometry
Click the points of intersection on the mesh to move them around

Tip: Make sure you are not using noclip (pressing Z) mode while painting geometry, it might not work well
Tip: Click the DW (on the top toolbar) to display walkable area so you can make sure you can travel over a certain spot.

As with everything, practice (and a hell of a lot of free time) makes perfect. If you're new i'd suggest your best bet is to spend most of your time reading tutorials and articles on level design. Whilst poking at what you've read in hammer.

The orange textures help because they show scale so a map doesn't get too big or small as a mapper goes. And as TotalMark said, if a mapper doesn't know what texture they'll use, the "dev" textures are appropriate place holders.

I spent most of my early mapping days just making rooms, catwalks, seeing how technical and fancy i could make a room, platforms and such. It's a good way to start, to get the hang of constructing your basic map. Of course "back in my day" We never had displacements or models. So i got to learn as hl developed with technology, you have so much to learn right off :O good luck!

two more questions, how do i make plain holes, I mean so I can make "lower" maps like caves lol.. sorry for bad english Im talking about things like dustbowl blue respawn

other question is what is the name of the texture used on the displacements of dustbowl? and what is the name of the orange texture and the grey texture(floor one) that people usually use when they dont know the textures.

Sorry for bad english again hehe

displacements are those different walls? I mean, the one that arent totally plain like rocks etc? What are the uses of the displacements?

With regard to the hole. Here's a pic illustrating how to construct "brush's" or world geometry and create a gap. Hopefully you can see the build lines. just build blocks next to each other to leave a gap. then a room underneath/above. Hope that helps?

Make a block
Click the texture application button
Select only the visible side(s) of the block
Click the displacement tab in the new window
Click the Create button
The power defines how many points you can edit (higher = more points)
Click ok
Click Paint geometry
Click the points of intersection on the mesh to move them around

Tip: Make sure you are not using noclip (pressing Z) mode while painting geometry, it might not work well
Tip: Click the DW (on the top toolbar) to display walkable area so you can make sure you can travel over a certain spot.

Click to expand...

fyp

also remember that displacements do not seal the world, so you must have a regular wall behind it. usually I use nodraw for the wall behind because you will never see it.

With regard to the hole. Here's a pic illustrating how to construct "brush's" or world geometry and create a gap. Hopefully you can see the build lines. just build blocks next to each other to leave a gap. then a room underneath/above. Hope that helps?

Click to expand...

this could sound ridiculous lol but I didint understand some of your english, im from brazil and thats a little bit hard for me lol. what you mean by "brush's"? and also.. i didint understand when u told to build blocks next to each other to leave a gap, what did you mean? The only way i know to make those things is for example: Making a square and then another square inside it, then Carving. On the image thats what you did? Didnt understand ! sorry!!

i found the Dev texture, but there are different ones, like the 64x64 or 32x32 (crate). Well I should make my maps in blocks of 64x64 so that i can control how high it is? how that works?

"Brushes" refer to the pieces of geometry you create in Hammer while building your level. They can be blocks, wedges, spikes, anything convex. This is why a hole must be built out of multiple convex brushes, because a "hole" is a concave shape. The use of brushes enables a solid geometry approach to level design which is easier for the building of space-based models like game levels. It differs from a typical surface modeller approach in other modelling software packages. These brushes are later disassembled by the compile tools to build the final visible faces of the level.

You should really start here, and more specifically here. Get all the basics of Hammer down. Carving is usually a bad idea as you can create invalid or unoptimized brushes leading to errors and/or longer compile times, but especially if you're just starting out stay away from that tool. Get to know the clipping tool instead.

If you're just starting out, get to know the grid well. Work in larger grid settings (16, 32) at the beginning and increase/decrease the grid size as work as needed. Try to plan out your brushes and spaces in common multiples for easier brush/texture alignment. It's like a drawing, you sketch out the larger forms and layer finer detail in at later stages. I had a friend who started mapping and almost completely ignored the grid initially which led to him abandoning his first map as it was a mess.

Hey guys, is it better to make the underground map first and then the others? I made a floor and started doing something there, some rooms with doors and these things, and then i placed a roof on it. This i done so far is meant to be the
underground map, and now i will probably make stairs or elevator so that its possible to go up. I dont know if this is the best way to make underground maps, also, I dont feel confortable to make underground water yet, I am having some problems with it, someone told me to make 4 walls like a square and a floor, and then put the water texture on top, and the other i should put the "nodraw", thats ok, but, think with me, I have a floor and then i make something like that i just said (the 4 walls etc), I will have like:

-------- (water)
--------------------------------------- (floor)

The problem is, if i wanna make this water deeper, i will have to move the floor down, but moving the floor down i will be moving the whole map down!, then for the floor i should make it in small blocks? lol i dont know if im a real noob but thats annoying me!. I hope you guys can understand me hehe!

Don't worry about your English, it is easy to read. Your are just unlucky that this forum is not in Brazillian (or is it Portuguise?).

Anyway...

How you start your map is up to you, when I do it I start where the main floor is (wether this is above or below ground). Once I have a main floor I can then build up to make buildings etc, or create hole and build down below for tunnels. If most of the map is above ground then start there, if most of it is underground start there, its about what seems eaiest to work with.

Underground water and overground water are exaclty the same...All you do is make one big block, texture all of it with nodraw except the top. This is where you put the water texture.

Do you need to move the floor down? Or can you move the water up? It depends on what is easier. Maybe the floor should be displacements then you could move the bit that you want lower or higher up or down.